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Genesis VIII: To Rakbana
The party then trekked across the Mahnen Desert, where they were trailed and eventually ambushed by a pack of desert gnolls. While under assault, the party was aided by Rakid and Darr Ude (the latter of whom was in the form of a dingo). They were a pair of strange hermits living together in the desert. Rakid, a harssaf monk trained in a hidden monastery in Mahnen, was studying the secrets of the desert under the psurlon shapeshifter Darr Ude, who possessed an unusual primal connection to it. With Darr Ude veering into the form a huge vulture and later a desert elephant, Belgar demonstrating a magnetic emitter cannon weapon he invented, and Jovian raining fire down on the gnolls with an unusual dart and blinding them with smoke, the party made short work of the gnolls. From the gnoll alpha, Jovian recovered a strange sphere, which he identified as some sort of storage device that would open when one solved a puzzle on the surface. The party then made camp with the two hermits, who decided to help guide them to the Heimvald. The next day they set out after battling some scorpions that crept into the camp. With the guidance of Rakid and Darr Ude, the party made it to the Heimvald, at which point Rakid parted ways with them, while Darr Ude continued (briefly) to see what would happen next. The party was met by a heimwarg named Warden, who offered to lead them to Heimcanaan, explaining that the Heimvald was currently facing some kind of fey incursion. The party followed Warden until the path darkened, and he seemed to split into multiple copies of himself. Several of the party members got lost at this point, while others had a brief run-in with Albrek Bane, the Immortal of Death, who was seeking something inside Heimcanaan. Apparently, he was forbidden to enter due to a pact he made with the Immortal of Birth, and he tried to intimidate the party into helping him find it. Belgar, Lantis, and Nel found themselves inadvertently shifting into the realm of the invading fey, a powerful creature called the Autumn Viscount. The Viscount's servants, raven-like creatures clad in armour called "vilderavns," gave chase to the intruders. Only Nel was captured, and placed into a coffin, where the fey were forced to mourn him as part of some bizarre show put on by the Viscount. Lantis managed to escape by opening a rift to the void, entering a realm of "Endless Gelatinous Clockwork Reptilian Treemen." After escaping this realm with the aid of some sort of sentient slime monster, and reacquiring his Dream Orb in the process, he briefly developed an inexplicable obsession with holy objects. While Nel struggled with his living funeral, the others made it to Heimcanaan, where they witnessed the monolithic Janastone in the center, as well as an abundance of mills and houses going up into the canopies. There was only one chair in the entire settlement, intended for guests. It was being used by a missionary of Torm, who attempted to threaten the party into leaving Heimcanaan. He was unable to act, however, as the heimwargs were very protective of their home. After conversing with the heimwargs, they learned that a portion of the ''Renascentia Arcanum ''was indeed in Heimcanaan, but the heimwargs would not give it up easily. They asked for the party's help in going east to the hazardous region of Rakbana, where they would find Avarshinah, the Immortal of Birth, who abandoned the heimwargs in ages past. The heimwargs were desperate for guidance, which they hoped they could acquire from their former leader and supposed creator. The party used an ancient path in the treetops through an old (now defunct) meditation grove to escape with minimal notice by the fey invaders. On the way, Jovian finds a way into the Autumn Viscount's realm, and helps Nel to escape. Forced to cross the Unborn Mountains, the party had to choose between three possible routes. They choose the "Safe" Passage, arguably the most dangerous pass, and for this they traveled north over the Diwano Scrublands. While traversing the scrublands, they encountered a trader from Azreidel named Simon di Cormont, who tried to set up a contract with Jovian. They were unable to come to an agreement, but Jovian offered to consider meeting Simon again on their return to Azreidel. Later, they made it to the Unborn Mountains, where they contended with the raw earth magic causing frequent, huge landslides and hurtling boulders in unexpected directions seemingly at random. Despite the ordeal, they made it through to Rakbana, the land of jade moss, acid volcanoes, and very little besides. Category:Plot of Genesis